Gaming systems that provide players awards in primary or base games are well known. These gaming systems generally require a player to place a wager to activate a play of the primary game. For many of these gaming systems, any award provided to a player for a wagered-on play of a primary game is based on the player obtaining a winning symbol or a winning symbol combination and on an amount of the wager (e.g., the higher the amount of the wager, the higher the award). Winning symbols or winning symbol combinations that are less likely to occur typically result in larger awards being provided when they do occur.
For such known gaming systems, an amount of a wager placed on a primary game by a player may vary. For instance, a gaming system may enable a player to wager a minimum quantity of credits, such as one credit (e.g., in monetary currency, one penny, nickel, dime, quarter, or dollar; in non-monetary currency, one point, credit, coin, token, free play credit, or virtual buck), up to a maximum quantity of credits, such as five credits. The gaming system may enable the player to place this wager a single time or multiple times for a single play of the primary game. For instance, a gaming system configured to operate a slot game may have one or more paylines, and the gaming system may enable a player to place a wager on each of the paylines for a single play of the slot game. Thus, it is known that a gaming system, such as one configured to operate a slot game, may enable players to place wagers of substantially different amounts on each play of a primary game. For example, the amounts of the wagers may range from one credit up to 125 credits (e.g., five credits on each of twenty-five separate paylines). This is also true for other wagering games, such as video draw poker, in which players can place wagers of one or more credits on each hand, and in which multiple hands can be played simultaneously. Accordingly, it should be appreciated that different players play at substantially different wager amounts or levels and substantially different rates of play.
Bonus or secondary games are also known in gaming systems. Such gaming systems usually provide an award to a player for a play of one such bonus game in addition to any awards provided for any plays of any primary games. Bonus games usually do not require an additional wager to be placed by the player to be initiated. Bonus games are typically initiated or triggered upon an occurrence of a designated triggering symbol or designated triggering symbol combination in the primary game. For instance, a gaming system may initiate or trigger a bonus game when a bonus symbol occurs on the payline on the third reel of a three reel slot machine. The gaming systems generally indicates when a bonus game is initiated or triggered through one or more visual and/or audio output devices, such as the reels, lights, speakers, display screens, etc. Part of the enjoyment and excitement of playing certain gaming systems is the initiation or triggering of a bonus game, even before the player knows an amount of a bonus award won via the bonus game.
Instant lottery tickets, sometimes referred to as scratch-off tickets, are also known. An instant lottery ticket typically includes a physical card printed with a potential award (or awards). The potential award (or awards) is covered by a removable material. A player purchases the instant lottery ticket and removes the removable material (such as by scratching off the removable material) to determine whether the player wins the prize (or prizes) printed on the card. In other words, unlike traditional lotteries in which a player must wait for a drawing to occur to determine whether the player's ticket is a winning ticket, instant lottery tickets enable a player to determine whether the player's ticket is a winning ticket immediately after the player purchases the ticket.
One major drawback associated with instant lottery tickets is that most instant lottery tickets provide limited entertainment value to players—it only takes the player a few seconds to remove the removable material to determine if the ticket is a winning ticket. Another major drawback associated with instant lottery tickets is that the majority of instant lottery tickets are non-winning tickets. Thus, frequent players and purchasers of instant lottery tickets often end up with stacks of useless, non-winning tickets.
One known attempt to mitigate these drawbacks is to offer a second chance drawing. To enter the second-chance drawing, a player may mail a quantity of one or more non-winning instant lottery tickets to the lottery provider, and each of the tickets is entered in a drawing. If one of the player's tickets is drawn when the drawing is conducted, the player wins a second chance award. This attempted solution does not, however, solve the above-described problems. Simply mailing a non-winning ticket to the lottery provider to be entered into a drawing with typically extremely low chances of winning is not exciting or fun for most players.
A continuing need thus exists for gaming systems and methods that provide new, exciting, and engaging ways for players to utilize non-winning lottery or other instant win tickets.